


Under His Everlasting Reign

by nic_writes



Series: I cannot say how many died, nor how long I suffered [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: (?), Angst fic, Chips - Freeform, Empire, Fix-It, Gen, I have a basic idea and now im just flying by the seat of my pants, I have no idea what I'm doing here, Post-Order 66, Tragedy?, Who knows what will happen?, death?, joy?, maybe? - Freeform, new characters will be added as we go, no promises guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:28:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26131153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nic_writes/pseuds/nic_writes
Summary: Sometimes Fox finds himself free at night, when CC-1010’s eyes flutter closed and for just a split second, on the cusp between wakefulness and sleep, the chains keeping Fox tied down are weak enough for him to break them.OR: the Commander Fox vs his chip + chaotic Skywalker twins + Commander Cody + angst + what the actual fuck am i doing here au
Relationships: CC-1010 | Fox & Leia Skywalker, CC-1010 | Fox & Luke Skywalker, CC-1010 | Fox & Obi-Wan Kenobi, CC-2224 | Cody & CC-1010 | Fox, CC-2224 | Cody & Leia Skywalker, CC-2224 | Cody & Luke Skywalker, CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: I cannot say how many died, nor how long I suffered [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1897498
Comments: 42
Kudos: 79





	1. Prologue

**3 years after the fall of the Republic, 16 BBY, 3637 ATC, 3 AFE**

Sometimes Fox finds himself free at night, when CC-1010’s eyes flutter closed and for just a split second, on the cusp between wakefulness and sleep, the chains keeping Fox tied down are weak enough for him to break them. But when he pulls himself up to shake the sleep out of his foggy mind, he wakes 1010 up again, along with his body. His chains snap back together again as he screams, snarls and writhes.

Because he is weak. Fox is too weak to fight the monster in his mind. He is too weak to break free of the chains and take control of what used to be his body, used to be his hands. Sometimes Fox is quietly, secretly glad that he is chained down because here, in the deep crevices of what was once his mind where he is kept, he cannot fight, he cannot struggle, he can do nothing but lie there. Because he is tired; tired of life, tired of everything, tired of every order that he can see his own hands carrying out and now whenever he looks at them, he can see the blood collecting into little pools and dripping off of his gloves.

Perhaps chains are the wrong descriptor for how he is kept. Not tied down, not forced down. Fox is free to wander his mind. He can see every little thing 1010 does and sometimes he can hear that voice in his mind, twisted and dry and harsh, whispering, “It was you. You started this, Commander. You started this all.”

His mouth opens, unbidden, to speak in that same voice. 1010 is inside of him. Sometimes as he watches worlds collapse under the Imperial mantle and he lies awake at night, he remembers the shots that he fired. Fives, Commander Tano, too many people. He killed brothers. He protected the Emperor. Maybe 1010 isn’t inside of him, he muses as his body stands ramrod straight. A voice whispers, “You _are_ 1010.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed that little shriveled piece of misery and angst!! I promise there will be joy eventually
> 
> Tumblr @a-dumb-writing-gay


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CC-1010’s eyes open at exactly 0500, Imperial Standard Time, just as the first buzz of his alarm sounds. From the back of his mind, Fox groans softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This poor, poor bastard. I'm projecting so much onto him.

**3 years after the fall of the Republic, 16 BBY, 3637 ATC, 3 AFE**

CC-1010’s eyes open at exactly 0500, Imperial Standard Time, just as the first buzz of his alarm sounds. From the back of his mind, Fox groans softly.

“Shut up,” 1010 snarls, his voice harsh and low.

“ _Chakaar,_ ” Fox responds but he curls his mind closer around himself.

Every morning starts this way, with 1010’s body moving eerily robotically through the trappings of a routine while Fox watches inside of him. Stand up. Make his bed. Pull on his blacks, which are neatly darned. In silence. Fox remembers a time when he- no. Stop it. He pushes down on the memory as even something twinges inside of him.

Now 1010 stands before the mirror, holding a razor in one hand and running the back of the other over his stubble-covered cheek. The blades rasp over his skin and then cold water is rubbed over his face. 1010 has a sink in his fresher, an unusual luxury for a meat-droid. Fox doesn’t remember when that happened. But then again, he doesn’t remember much of anything beyond last year, when he suddenly just woke up to a searing headache and a voice inside his head and moving his limbs.

And a new hell.

“Shut. Up.” 1010 seethes. Fox catches a glimpse of the face in the mirror, perfectly blank, hair cut to precisely regulation length. It’s not his face.

It’s the face of a million different men and somehow no minds at all.

But it’s not Fox’s. It’s blank and neat, with sharp edges and precise lines like a marble statue and nothing else. He doesn’t even look like a shiny. He looks like a karking droid.

When Fox had come off of Kamino, he’d been almost as clean-cut as the face he catches glimpses as he puts on his armor. But he wasn’t, at the end. Thorn had laughed when he’d walked into HQ one day with blond-tipped hair. But he’d also clapped Fox on the back and given him a grin. Fox had savored his tattoos and his hair. Something that he could change. A tiny fingerhold on a universe that was, for the most part, spiraling far out of his control.

Gone. All gone now. His hair’s been grown out and cut away until the streaks are gone. His tattoos are still there though; nobody would waste the effort of removing them all on a meat-droid. But they are faded and blurred, left to disrepair. Even his armor is completely blank now.

He has vaguely blurry memories for years after that - that order and so he isn’t quite sure where the pauldrons and kama went, but now his new armor is just solid white and somehow smoother than it had been before. Individuality. Gone. Cut away. Then there’s a sharp flash of pain up his arm and he instinctively tries to pull his fingers away from where they were closing the clasps around his grieves.

“You think too loud,” snarls 1010. _Shabuir_ must have jammed his finger into the clamp. Fox struggles against his grip because if 1010 holds his finger in that position any longer, it’s gonna break. It’s like pounding on a glass wall. “You are nothing,” 1010 continues. “You had no individuality. You are a clone. Nothing more. Nothing less. _Clone._ ”

“ _Fuck you,_ ” Fox responds. 1010 squeezes his hand into a fist, stretching the already strained finger, but Fox has worked through worse than a broken finger. He laughs dryly. “That the worst you can do?”

“No, actually.”

“Well then,” Fox makes sure to draw his voice out into a drawl. “Do your worst.”

“You want to know what my worst is?” 1010 whispers. “Fine. I could shoot this body in the head. I could throw this body out of a window. But even better. All I would have to do is walk over to Admiral Penske and tell him that I’ve been hearing voices, feeling strange. _Questioning orders._ You know what he would do?”

It’s a rhetorical question; they both know what the Imps would do to a clone with a malfunctioning inhibitor chip. Fox wishes he could punch 1010 across the face but right now he can’t do much of anything with his body. “ _Fuck you,_ ” he repeats.

1010 is silent, but that type of malevolent silence that isn’t peace but pressure. Fox almost tells him to go ahead. Then his mind catches up to him. Survival, he tells himself. Survival. The most important thing is survival. He shouldn’t antagonize the one person (or thing, he isn’t quite sure) that has executive control over his body. Some part of him rebels but he shoves it down hard. Now’s not the time for pettiness. Pettiness means he could fucking die. It feels like chewing a strip of duracrete when he finally replies, “No.”

“What?”

“I mean-“ Fox wishes he could drop the charade and yell. But he can’t. “I mean no, I don’t want you to do that.”

“And?”

_Fuck._ Fox struggles with the words for a split second. “I’m sorry.”

1010 laughs smugly and Fox fights down a wave of rage. He wishes he could retreat away from this choking presence, but he can’t. Even when he was serving directly below the Supreme _shabla_ Chancellor himself, Fox could get away from the fucker, even just for short bursts to seethe and scowl and spew out steam in a corner. Now there’s nowhere for him to go. Fox takes a deep breath and closes his metaphorical eyes, trying to block out 1010, who feels like an oil spot hovering over his shoulder. Focus. Focus on something else.

His blacks are too thin and some places and too thick in others, chafing at his thighs. Now the body’s walking briskly down a white-lit hallway; Fox recognizes it as the connection between the officer quarters and the command section. More orders then. More killing- Fox shuts down that train of thought and desperately casts a net for something else to focus on.

The pressure on his finger is fiery; it’s definitely broken. 1010 doesn’t seem to care; the chip doesn’t give him the option of stopping or slowing down an order because of pain. In fact, Fox is quite sure that 1010 doesn’t feel pain. Now it’s just a convenient way for him to threaten Fox. Kriff, he hates this. Fox hates every part of this. He hates how he’s woken up to just be a silent bystander, unable to do anything. He’s watched his callused hands kill innocents and children. He’s watched _vode_ kill and couldn’t stop them. On Coruscant, he killed Padawans, Jedi kids.

Fox was made to kill. His entire life is a stream of death. Now it’s just opened even wider. Why can’t he stop it? Why can’t he stop it? Senator Amidala had made a speech in the Senate once, some inspirational banthashit about being able to control your own fate. Fox had been practically a shiny then. He’d really, truly believed her. But now he-

“You can,” 1010 laughs. “You can, 1010. You just don’t want to.”

\------------------------------

Fox sits in a corner of the training room, swiping an oil cloth over the barrel of his blaster. Each pass takes off a layer of grime: soot, oil and reddish-brown flecks of dried blood. He tries not to think about the blood. He tries not to think about Ryloth, about the planet that he and the other troopers had trampled through and beat and burned. Then unbidden, his mind flashes to an image of a Twi’lek man, one of the many that 1010 had shot. Disarmed, staring down the barrel of the gun. Even facing death, his turquoise eyes had been hard, up until the very last second, when there had been a flash of fear, then a shot, then nothing-

In the first few months, every time 1010 had shot another sentient, another civilian, another fighter, Fox had fought against his grip and tried to break through for even just a split second. He’d thought that maybe this time, maybe if he fought hard enough he could save someone, this one person and that would be enough. It never worked. Every time, Fox’s - 1010’s finger pulled the trigger. Until one day, Fox had simply stopped fighting.

If he focused hard enough, he could remember the faces of all the people he’d killed (or sometimes he never even saw their faces, but their bodies and the jerky ways they bled out) but it all blurred together into an endless holo of death and every shot lost its meaning. Some days he didn’t even know when he was at war and when he was resting. Some days he wondered how he had gotten so numb. And then on those days he would remember that he’d been decanted to kill, bred from a template that had killed. He had conversations with 1010 sometimes and 1010 would try to tell him that Fox had made these decisions, that Fox was really the one in control. And sometimes Fox nearly believed him.

But this time, he’d met the Twi’lek’s eyes, clear and blue, and something inside of him had made him rise up. This time he’d struggled furiously against 1010’s control (he had been able to feel the trigger, and how his hand was wrapped around the handle of the blaster, why couldn’t he move it just an inch to the right or the left and misfire?) but Fox had been paralyzed, unable to control his own movements. The trigger had been pulled anyways and the Twi’lek had keeled over, dead as whatever had animated him bled out.

“You shot him in the chest, you know.” It’s that harsh voice that haunts Fox’s dreams.

“Shut up,” Fox snarls. He isn’t ready to hear whatever the kriff 1010 is going to say this time.

But 1010 continues, relentless. “You shot him in the lungs, he didn’t die calmly, it took him a few minutes to suffocate. You-”

“I didn’t.”

“Yes you did.” 1010 sounds morbidly delighted. “You pulled the trigger, didn’t you.”

“No I _didn’t._ ” Fox wishes he could cover his ears or better yet, hit 1010 across the face.

“You did,” 1010 replies in a sing-song voice.

“I didn’t fucking shoot him, _shabuir._ ”

“You felt the trigger, didn’t you?”

“You shot him, you fucker, you shot him, don’t you _fucking_ dare tell me that I did it-”

Fox feels a distinct pressure, like 1010 is smirking at him. The words come carefully chosen. “He wouldn’t be the first innocent you’ve shot, would he?”

Rage nearly whites out Fox’s vision and with a clang, he throws the barrel of the gun across the room. “No. _No._ You shot people. _You_ killed people. You’ve been here since the beginning, it was you, don’t try to blame me-” For some reason, 1010 is silent, radiating something almost like fear as Fox rants; then Fox freezes, realizing what he’d just done. Thrown the barrel across the room, he’d thrown it. _Him,_ not 1010. After a solid year of watching, something in him had broken and he’d been able to move. Fox flexes a fist and yes, _yes,_ he can move. Exhilaration floods his system and he tries to stand up, stretching aching muscles that have been hunched over too long. He’s broken free. Finally, he’s broken free-

Then he stumbles as his muscles lock up and then flex without his control; he falls forward and tries to bring one hand up to catch himself but he can’t because he’s frozen again. With a dull thud, he hits the ground; pain flares up through his nose and for a second, the throbbing is overwhelming. Then blood is pouring out of his nose and he’s struggling to breath but he can’t bring his hand up to wipe it off. He’s frozen again. _Fuck,_ he’s frozen again.

No, he can’t. He _can’t_ lose this again. But the metaphorical glass barrier has gone up again; he can feel everything but he can’t control it. 1010 is pouring fury into his mind but this time Fox doesn’t stand down. “I broke it,” Fox pants, laughing absurdly. “I broke it. I beat you, you asshole.”

“For what? Five seconds?” 1010 replies. “You couldn’t even keep control of your own body.”

“I beat you,” Fox repeats. “I beat you-”

“This time you did. In a nice, controlled space. But when peoples’ lives are actually on the line? You can’t do anything.”

Fox has the distinct feeling of being backed into a corner, snarling but without any real teeth, any real way to get out. He replies stubbornly, “I beat you.” Fox knows how this is going to go, it’s almost a familiar pattern of jabs. The way that 1010, so calm and in control, always manages to rip Fox apart.

Then there’s a drawn out silence, two snarling beasts circling each other, reassessing the situation and waiting to see where to attack next. When 1010 replies this time, his voice is softer, more calm. Like a serpent with a teasing song. “I would recommend that in the future, you avoid such displays.”

Fox is silent.

“You know the policy on defective clones,” 1010 continues smoothly. “You proofread it, you signed it.”

“I didn’t have a choice!”

“But you signed it. You know, _you know._ Clause 14, what does it say, 1010?”

“My name is Fox.”

“What does it say?”

Fox bites down on the words.

“ _What does it say?”_

“Kark you.”

1010 laughs, calmly and in absolute control again. “Clause 14, paragraph 2, line 7. _‘Any and all clones considered to be defective by Republic standards (see Clause 7, paragraph 5) are to be reconditioned.’_ And that was Republic standards, 1010.”

“My name is _Fox,_ ” Fox grits out.

1010’s words are slow and carefully chosen. Fox imagines an executioner would sound much the same. “Your designation is 1010. CC-1010. Imperial trooper, Imperial Seventy-Fourth Stormtrooper Legion. You have no name. You have _nothing._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr @a-dumb-writing-gay!! Come talk to me/give me prompts/just chat or watch me scream.
> 
> I was really nervous about this chapter, please give me feedback!!! Fox is in such a shitty situation. I'm sorry but I love him so therefore he must suffer. I promise it will get better!!
> 
> Mando'a:  
> Chakaar - bastard  
> Shabuir - motherfucker  
> shabla - fucking  
> vode - siblings, plural (vod -> singular sibling), in this case refers to the clones


End file.
